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Pripyat is a ghost city located 3 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. All the citizens of this city were evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, and the city has been closed for residents and visitors ever since. Nowadays, you can enter to this ghost city only with a special permission and accompanied by an employee of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The only day when anyone can enter the city without a special document is May 9 of every year, the Memorial day.
I decided to come back to Pripyat because it was my home. It is the city where I grew up and lived. The Memorial day has become the traditional day of visiting the city for all its former citizens. Many people who lived here before come just to walk the streets of this city where they spent so many years. Here they meet their former neighbors and friends. They talk about life and try to remember what life was like before the disaster. It is their only chance to visit their past for one day. Also, many young people come to Pripyat on this day just for tourism: to have fun, take photos, show off, and experience an adrenalin rush. It is quite dangerous to be on this contaminated territory. Even now there is a high level of radioactive contamination in some places of the city. Pripyat is abandoned, and it has been decaying year after year. Nearly all houses are ruined. Most basements are flooded, and trees grow on the roofs. The city that was built in the forest is being absorbed by it. This is a clear example of how modern technologies and human development are insignificant before the power of nature.